Back to the Future II

[draggar]

It's on TV now and I realized we're a little 5 years away from the future part of the movie (Oct 21, 2015).

Let's see what we've accomplished:

Flying cars? No.
Abolished all lawyers? No.
Hoverboards? No.
Cubs win the world series - nope (and no way to know now since the World Series is in the end of October)
Self-lacing shows - Yes!
Self fitting clothes - no
Holographic / 3D movie posters? No, but I think we're close.
Miami Baseball team - Yes(Florida Marlins)
Wall-sized TVs - hell yes.
A fax in every room - nope (and fax is almost obsolete)

Added (Thanks to Plaidman):
Video billboards - YES!
Video conferencing - Yes!
Different TV channels at the same time - Yes! (a.k.a. picture in picture)
Handless video games - Yes! Wii and Kinect
Abundance of plastic surgery - yes!

I'll also add the big ones today they missed:
Cell phones everywhere
Portable music (MP3 etc.)
Mobile computing

[Dave1982]

I don't think *any* film taking place in the near future ever got it right

[lordlundar]

I don't think *any* film taking place in the near future ever got it right

And let's not get into any medium taking place in the distant future...

[SteeleDragon78]

Self-lacing shows - I don't think so

this one is in development by nike

[Plaidman]

this one is in development by nike

Wrong. Already made and been out for a year, though you have to special order it. Big fan made it, and is selling the design to NIKE.

http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat...ing-shoes.html

On that boat, how about we name the stuff they got right?

Multiple TV channels on at same time. Check

Video Billboards? Check.

Video Games without hands? (Use your hands? That's a baby game! being uttered by a super young Ejiah Woods in his first role). Yep

Cameras everywhere? Yep.

Plastic Surgery everywhere? Yeah. Though I don't think you can replace colon quite yet.

Video Conferencing? Big yes.

Flying cars do exist, they're just insanely expensive and again, need to be special ordered, TerraFugia being the best example. (Quarter million, not including the special training your required).

[draggar]

TY Plaid - I've added your list (and credited) plus I added the ones that are big today that they completely missed.

Flying cars may exist but aren't readily available as they were in the amount they were in back to the Future - but I think the self-lacing shoes may be by 2015.

[blas]

I don't take movies that are futuristic seriously.

Back in my parents' day, they thought we'd all be living in space by the year 2000.

[ApolloSZ]

Heh funny this topic came up. Guess what I saw outside my job end of last year? I didn't think we had any in NZ.

[draggar]

I don't take movies that are futuristic seriously.

Back in my parents' day, they thought we'd all be living in space by the year 2000.

You'd be surprised at how often a "future" show is on TV that gives people ideas.

MP3s were thought up after one of the Apple software engineers saw the episode when Data had several songs playing over the PC.

I know there were a few others that gave people the ideas from Star Trek and I'm sure other shows / movies have done the same.

[Ben_Who]

It's the habit of futurist movies to take whatever trends exist and simply expand them, as if no one will ever invent new trends, which is probably why BTTF II looks like the 1980s exploded in your face, yet makes no mention of the Internet, cell phones, or handheld video games - things that actually existed in the 1980s and were trending upwards.

Still, we have four years to go. Maybe telephone booths, fax machines, newspapers, laser discs, and floor console video games will make a comeback. At least our 3D is better.

Love, Who?

[NorthernZel]

You'd be surprised at how often a "future" show is on TV that gives people ideas.

MP3s were thought up after one of the Apple software engineers saw the episode when Data had several songs playing over the PC.

I know there were a few others that gave people the ideas from Star Trek and I'm sure other shows / movies have done the same.

Actually, I think that Cracked.com had an article about that, but I haven't been able to search for it

OTOH I remember a 50's documentary about "the future" that suggested the possibility of microwave ovens. Only that the ovens were the size of a 60" TV



ETA: Oh, and totally off-topic, when I saw the H2G2 movie I couldn't help chuckle at the sight of Deep Thought having an old-fashioned floppy drive as a mouth (Now I think of it it was a shout-out to the first Mac, which Douglas Adams was a big fan of, but it's still funny)

[Plaidman]

A video store near me, that has tons of movie memoria had a replica of the time machine. It was awesome.


I love the little details in the movies, like in the beginning of the first one, the mall is called twin pine malls, after the 55's crazy farmer who had a notion of breeding pine trees. When Marty goes back and escapes the farm, he runs over a pine much to the anger of the farmer "WHY YOU!!! MY PINE!!!" *Shotgun blasts*

At the end of the movie, the mall is now simply called Lone Pine Mall.

[MadMike]

At the end of the movie, the mall is now simply called Lone Pine Mall.

Holy hell, I completely missed that. I had to go back and check it myself. I did catch "Eastwood Ravine" at the end of the third one though.

My wife, who usually catches everything, didn't catch ZZ Top at the town fair, even with the trademark guitar-spin.

[Plaidman]

Speaking of the third one, someone else had to point out to me, but did you see it when at the end and Doc is talking to Jen and Marty about how the future isn't written, how his son in the background starts opening and closing his hand rapidly? Just totally random.

[Dave1982]

Heh funny this topic came up. Guess what I saw outside my job end of last year? I didn't think we had any in NZ.

There are a few there. In fact, here's a little bit of DeLorean trivia for you.

The original hand-built DeLorean prototype (Proto 1) from 1975 (which looks quite a bit different from the production model) was thought to have been lost for many years. The second prototype and a number of other pre-production and other test cars were known to be in the possession of Lotus when DMC was shut down and most of these were later scrapped (believed to be largely out of spite since Lotus had done almost all of the engineering on the car and may have been owed money). It was thought that Proto 1 was one of the cars Lotus scrapped.

I don't recall exactly when, but sometime around 2004 it was located. Turns out it had been sold at auction and had been bought by a business owner somewhere in the southwest US, who used it as a display piece for his business for a number of years before having it put into a barn on his property. It was then put on eBay at about the same time that VIN 502 also surfaced for sale (VIN 502 is the 3rd production car and was delivered to Legend Industries in New York to be a test bed for the never-released twin-turbo model).

Anyway, Proto 1 - after being confirmed as THE original prototype - was purchased by a gentleman named Tony Ierardi. Tony later founded the Florida branch of DMC, and spent two years doing a full restoration of the prototype. The car was unveiled at about 98% restored at DeLorean Car Show 2006 in Chicago.

Here's a video clip of it driving around the convention center, shot by yours truly.

Around 2008 Tony - for reasons that I do not know - decided to sell the car, and it was purchased by a car collector in New Zealand. And if I remember correctly, VIN 502 also eventually sold to a collector in New Zealand (possibly the same guy for all I know).

So not only are there DeLoreans in New Zealand, but the VERY FIRST is there, as is one of only TWO DeLoreans fitted with what would've been the production twin-turbo engine.